I email my CSC because whenever we ring she's never available and don't even get an email back!

Join the club, I could never get through to my CSC. I ended up calling the sales office manager after about 3 months because I kept getting inconsistent answers to the same questions and finally got it sorted. I tried getting a new one but no luck.

I am going to set myself a challenge, to see how long I can go without hearing from them!

Jess offered to get them to get in contact with us, DH doesn't want to lose our anonymity.Fair enough

Hi building 1,

I understand you want to maintain your anonymity, but I would really like to help you get this sorted as soon as possible. I would like to uncover why your CSA hasn't contacted you, there could be a number of reasons that can be swiftly resolved. I would simply be passing onto your CSA that you would like to be called, you can explain over the phone exactly what's on your mind. Can I help you out? Cheers, Jess.

I email my CSC because whenever we ring she's never available and don't even get an email back!

Join the club, I could never get through to my CSC. I ended up calling the sales office manager after about 3 months because I kept getting inconsistent answers to the same questions and finally got it sorted. I tried getting a new one but no luck.

Anyway it doesn't get any better, I am still chasing up some minor stuff from 3 month maintenance and we moved in late Feb/early March. I understand its hard to track when tradies don't show up but I have called about a particular item 6 times (thats just the times I got through and talked to someone - about a 20% strike rate I find) and he still hasn't come.

Never mind the sludgy cornices and stained plaster from water leaking behind the walls in both the showers...

Hi gumboots,

I am sorry to hear that you had difficulties contacting Porter Davis during your build, I understand your frustrations. Who are you currently attempting to contact regarding your maintenance issues? Your new home care coordinator? Could you please send me a private message with your full name, phone number and lot address, as well as the name of your New Home Care Coordinator so I can get this sorted for you? Thanks for your feedback. Cheers, Jess.

New Home Care Coordinater? I didn't get one of those. I was just calling the maintenance line. They said they were very busy because they work 9am to 3.30 and get hundreds of calls a day.

Anyway today I got through to a wonderful lady who called me back (!) twice (!!). I think she is filling in for the normal lady. She managed to sort a lot of it out.

Thanks for your offer and if we have any more issues I will let you know. I would like to know if I was supposed to get a person to look after me though so I didn't have to call the maintenance line all the time.

I understand you want to maintain your anonymity, but I would really like to help you get this sort as soon as possible. I would like to uncover why your CSA hasn't contacted you, there could be a number of reasons that can be swiftly resolved. I would simply be passing onto your CSA that you would like to be called, you can explain over the phone exactly what's on your mind. Can I help you out? Cheers, Jess.

Hi Jess, CSC got back to me today, thanks for the offer

As for my build, apparently the council are holding out on us over something impossible, something about neighbours over the road (if you have a look at my thread you'll see who my neighbours over the road are, a bloody train line!) the council want approval for our 3 car garage from our neighbours who would be looking at it (best we ask those possums, i'll ply them with apples and pears shall I?)....

Hi Audreyand Oscar, we're also doing a prestige home and found the tile range pretty limited. They only really had one or two types of ceramic tiles and we upgraded almost all tiles to porcelain (it's what we always wanted).What I would suggest is taking yourself into a National Tiles store, pretty much one wall will be dedicated to PD, see what you like there and make your decision based on that.We're building a 30sq home and tile upgrades (wall and floor cost us ballpark $6k).Aircon would also cost close to that. Another thing to take into account is if they do a crap job of the tiles you will generally have the "protection" of a large builder to fall back on.If you have any specific questions feel free to PM me, happy to help

Hi everyoneI have my tender appt on Monday and am really looking forward to findout out what my "wish list" is going to cost me.

I do have a question I was hoping someone may be able to help with though.

I am building a Prestige Home and with the upgrade package I could pick 2 of 3 options. I chose the flooring anf the kitchen - and then paid the additional $5500 for the airconditioning.

Now I have decided to add timber floors throughout all the living areas - so it doesn't seem worth it to select the flooring inclusion? or does it?

So my real questions is....what is going to cost less

The air con at an additional $5500

OR

Flooring...carpets to bedrooms and tiles to bathroom and laundry.

By the way - I know I could probabaly do flooring cheaper after handover but I really want all the costs included in the mortgage so want PD to do it.

Any ideas and suggestions more than welcome!!

Hi,

We too are building a prestige and like you wanted PD to do the flooring regardless how much it was because we have young children and wouldn't have had the time to do it after handover with all the other stuff we would have to do like gardens etc. We upgraded our tiles to 600x600 porcelain tiles throughout the house; bathrooms, vanity splashbacks, bath hob, shower walls and base,WC, laundry floors and laundry splashback, entry, foyer, lounge hallway, kitchen, family, dining and rear hallway floors! Our house is 33sq and the total came to $8,744.00. I didn't think it was too bad considering that they will be installing them too.

I must say i'm pretty quick to jump on bad customer service but my CSC has been awesome today after a very rocky week.I made a little impromptu visit to find out why council are being difficult and she told me (umm ridiculous much) so I did a little legwork myself and gave her a little bit of ammunition to help, praying for site start before Christmas (but not holding my breath).Just let me cut through the red tape!

A little off topic however i did a search for Porter Davis and came across this thread. I am hoping that someone from Porter Davis will read this and actually get things sorted out FOR ONCE!. We built a Cremorne 35 in Sandhurst and have been living in it now for 5 weeks... Yes we still have cracked tiles, privacy locks that dont work, cracks in the brickwork, missing mortor in places, green? mortor when we paid for "off white", Weather seals on almost every external door were taken off for painting and were never put back on, several large DANGEROUS nails sticking out from the floor (about 2 inches) in one room, a door not hinged properly, tears in the carpet, loud floor boards etc. etc. etc.. Thats a short list from our PCI... that still exists. I work in the construction industry and the usually the time between PCI and handover is to arrange all hands on deck to get the place perfect to present to the client. Well, following our PCI i went past the place every day and not a thing was done (besides the painter who did a couple of touch ups and simply took the rest of our little red circle stickers off the walls!!!...

During this PCI I was promised by our supervisor:- Yes you will get 2 recycled water tap turners (did not get any. Cannot use taps!)- He would install window restrictors to all upstairs sliding windows to prevent the little one falling out (i think this is a regulation?)- He would install a push type sink plug for our powder room (the same as all other sinks).- He would have all the mortor patched up, then the brickwork to the WHOLE house would be cleaned, as it looks to have only been cleaned on the upper level (this has actually been picked up by other trades and friends/family).- They left a strange and dangerous sewerage outlet slightly covered by a round disk in the back yard. Thankfully we havnt started landscaping the backyard as yet so the little one isnt allowed out there.- A rep would attend to inspect the large chunk of wood missing from our bifold doors (they seem to throw around and scratch up most of the cosmetic fittings before they are fitted).- Was promised spare down lights aswell, as our supervisor advised many will go within the first few weeks.

So as far as being promised ANYTHING, dont believe a word until it is done!. I often stand out the front and look at our house in comparison to others being built in the area and seriously cannot believe the quality difference, not to mention the cleanliness difference (the house currently being built opposite ours is cleaner!!!!!).. If i could recommend one thing that our builder did differently from others that makes a huge difference, is to construct a BIN or somewhere where RUBBISH goes while the house is being built... i dont remember random (lots) of concrete blocks, and bricks, smashed up roof tiles scattered around the place in our building contract!!!!. that i simply dont know what to do with!!!!! TAKE YOUR RUBBISH WITH YOU!!!!!!!!!!

So Mr. Porter Davis, when are you going to FINISH this job before starting a new one??? I hope your house fills with bugs everynight aswell because you forgot to put the weather seals on your doors and one of the flyscreens fell off the top storey and hit you in the head!!!! (yes this actually happened!)

Also, i was under the impression that lines for solor panels should have been ran while the house was being built so that they are UNDER THE BRICKWORK not installed later on, running uncovered down the side of the house... looks ridiculous, not to mention the very crooked ******* looking solor panel.... hhmmm, hope that doesnt fall down and hit me on the head....

Thanks all if you have made it this far in reading this post... sorry for the length, just wanted to vent some (5 weeks worth) of frustration... I really dont think that some builders realise that the money people spend on their homes is usually every thing they have saved and is probably going to take them a life time to pay off... so it is VERY important, a new house is supposed to be a NEW house.... I feel like they have simply damaged our nice peice of land.. NOT HAPPY , hope the maintenance guy is prepared!

Good Luck! hope it all goes well! Take your time and make sure they have cleaned up all the mess they may have left outside the house, its very difficult to clean up afterwards! (we didnt have a site bin at our place during the build!!!!) Also check the ventilation for your ranghood and exhaust fans, as the bricky does his work before the electricians wire in and doesnt know which bricks to remove in place for grates. They forgot to arrange the bricky to come back to ours before we moved in...

Another thing to take into account is if they do a crap job of the tiles you will generally have the "protection" of a large builder to fall back on.If you have any specific questions feel free to PM me, happy to help

Don't count on it. My tiling was an absolutely appauling job. They came back to fix it and the second attempt was just as bad so the SS fired them and got someone in to fix the worst of it. To this day it is still the worst 'professional' job I've ever seen. Thank god I didn't pay extra to have the kitchen and family areas done. At least if you get it done later you can choose who the tiler is rather than having some random hack employed by PD. To be fair you may be lucky and get a good tiler but my personal experience is that if its a bad job they will not be as understanding as you may have hoped.

As for the ducted aircon - worth evey penny. I'd get the tiling an carpet done after handover - that way you can choose exactly what you want and shop around to get a better qaulity carpet for the same price.

edit - I read you post Octopus and my story was similar - not quite as bad though. It's the greatest con by PD when they offer you handover with a promise to come back and fix things because it seems 9/10 times they never do. You end up with a huge struggle to get it eventually finished. If there was one thing I'd have done differently it would be to not accept handover until 100% completion. They will tell you ANYTHING to make you take the keys and the sheet of paper they give you showing what needs to be done for completion is worth nothing.

Yeah.. tiles, that reminds me... i moped the tiles the other day (full bodies porcelin) and alot of mortor came up... awesome, now i have these nice dark brown/grey tiles with white grout, and a heap of black gaps between them.. not to mention the cracked one!...i totally agree, if you have the time, just get the builder to do the basic build, then organise your own trades to do things more specific... at least you can supervise them...

I would say the biggest tip was mentioned above - dont accept handover until everything is done

Yes, this is the best advice to everyone. The problem we had was that we originally anticipated to be in the house mid August... Handover was 29th October (38 week build)... We could have refused to take the keys and tried to get the $250 per week they offer for going out of the contract period, however we had sold our previous place and had to move, plus with a pregnant wife, moving twice wasnt an option.. According to the HIA i believe a builder has 3 months to rectify everything deemed to be a defect within 3 months of hand over... This is the defect and liability period and is different to the statutory warranty or 3 month maintenance inspection.

As part of our promotion, we are getting a 4-panel Bi-fold door in lieu of the normal Aluminium sliding door which we are obviously excited about

However, I do have a slight concern about the potential lack of privacy that such a door will offer. With all the windows in the house, we will have blinds installed which solves this problem but in the main part of the house we will have this area of 3m wide which will offer no privacy.

Consequently, can anyone recommend any ideas on how we can deal with this?

Many Thanks in advance,

Chorlton

Hi Chorlton,

I understand you're investigating ways to make your bi-fold doors more private. Bel&Marz is correct, you can get blinds, including roller blinds, installed over bi-fold doors. Part of PD's customer rewards program is blinds supplier, the Blind Factory. Check out your PD Rewards pack for more info. You should have received this at contract signing. Let me know if you have any further questions. Cheers, Jess.

As part of our promotion, we are getting a 4-panel Bi-fold door in lieu of the normal Aluminium sliding door which we are obviously excited about

However, I do have a slight concern about the potential lack of privacy that such a door will offer. With all the windows in the house, we will have blinds installed which solves this problem but in the main part of the house we will have this area of 3m wide which will offer no privacy.

Consequently, can anyone recommend any ideas on how we can deal with this?

Many Thanks in advance,

Chorlton

Hi Chorlton,

I understand you're investigating ways to make your bi-fold doors more private. Bel&Marz is correct, you can get blinds, including roller blinds, installed over bi-fold doors. Part of PD's customer rewards program is blinds supplier, the Blind Factory. Check out your PD Rewards pack for more info. You should have received this at contract signing. Let me know if you have any further questions. Cheers, Jess.

Hi Jess,

Thanks for the reply. I haven't signed contracts yet but will be doing so in the next couple of weeks, so I'll take a look at Blinds Factory once I receive my pack.